In the 1980s, Chris Strompolos and two friends, Eric Zala and Jayson Lamb, filmed a shot-for-shot remake of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in Mississippi. Strompolos played Indiana Jones.

It took them seven years -- using camcorders, friends, family and whatever props they could cobble together.

"Here was this seven-year odyssey of being a total geek," Strompolos, 37, recalls. "For me, it represented a chapter in my childhood that was very exciting and very turbulent -- a lot of changes, a lot of parental stuff going on, figuring out my awkward teenage self. I think for many years, my relationship to that movie was one of embarrassment."

After he got his life sorted out and got married, he says, "I never watched it. I never showed it to anybody. My wife didn't even know. I tucked it away."

But then something extraordinary happened. The remake -- dubbed "Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation" -- leaked to the world. And the world was awed and amused by the insane level of detail these young men invested in their homage to Steven Spielberg's 1981 adventure classic.

And the world (and a few Hollywood fans) saw fit to make it a cult sensation, changing Strompolos' life forever. In fact, he and Zala are proudly hosting three screenings of this remarkable, obsessive act of movie love Friday and Saturday at the Hollywood Theatre.

The kid puts himself in the picture

The saga begins in 1982, one year after "Raiders of the Lost Ark" hit theaters, when 10-year-old Strompolos bonded with 11-year-old Zala over a "Raiders" comic book on a school bus. Strompolos was a charismatic idea man; Zala obsessed about finishing what he started.

They transformed Eric's Mississippi basement into a Peruvian temple, a Nepalese bar, a crypt full of snakes. That basement (and the occasional cast member) was set ablaze. They cast blond children as spear-wielding Hovitos, a cute older girl named Angela Rodriguez as Marion, Chris' dog Snickers as an evil monkey and Eric's poor younger brother Kurt as nearly everyone else. With budding technical genius, Lamb handling the pyrotechnics and special effects, they were under way.

Watching the final result with an audience is a multilayered experience. On one level, it's funny: Because it was shot over seven years, largely during summer vacations, heights, voices and hairstyles often change midscene, and some substitutions (bicycles for motorcycles, Nazi-saluting dogs for Nazi-saluting monkeys) are stunning because they give a real idea of the relentless obsession behind the camera.

These kids were going to get their shots -- no matter what.

But on another level, "Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation" keeps tugging your jaw to the floor. These kids keep finding ways to re-create big-budget action scenes without money or stuntmen.

You find yourself saying, "Uh, did they really just set that room on fire? Did he just crawl under a moving truck? Are those real snakes? Did they really talk the Navy into letting Strompolos climb around on a real submarine? Am I actually catching myself enjoying this, here and there, as pure narrative?"

The answer is "yes" on all counts.

Fanboys' progress

The original Indy

So, how did the "Adaptation" go from embarrassing Strompolos to becoming his calling card?

Zala, who directed "Adaptation," went on to study film at New York University. He occasionally screened the remake for friends. A bootleg copy found its way to horror director Eli Roth ("Hostel"). Roth, by all accounts, went insane for it. In 2003, he took it to Austin, Texas, and got part of it screened during a film festival hosted by Harry Knowles of AintItCool.com.

The audience, by all accounts, went insane for it, too.

Knowles notified the world of "Adaptation's" existence in 2003, in a breathless AintItCool.com posting.

"This is the best ... fan film I've ever seen," he wrote. "The love and passion and sacrifice is on every single frame of this thing." He quickly helped organize a screening of the film at the Alamo Drafthouse. Zala, Lamb and Strompolos attended, and -- to their surprise -- they got a four-minute standing ovation.

"When I finally saw what it represented to people," Strompolos says today, "I think I experienced -- and understood -- the joy."

Meanwhile, Roth slipped a copy to Spielberg. Spielberg wrote personal thank-you letters to Strompolos, Zala and Lamb -- and later invited them to his office, where he showed the stunned thirtysomethings never-released blooper reels from the "Indiana Jones" trilogy.

Sadly, Strompolos says, he hasn't got any advance dirt on the impending "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," opening next month. "I so wish!" he says. "I certainly tried, though -- we screened the 'Adaptation' at ILM (George Lucas' special-effects house) last February."

Movie about the movie about the movie

In 2004, Vanity Fair magazine profiled the men and their seven-year struggle. The article explains some of Strompolos' later ambivalence: The production was difficult and interrupted more than once by fallings-out about, among other things, a girl.

But where Strompolos saw personal pain, Hollywood saw good drama: He, Lamb and Zala had their "life rights" optioned by producer Scott Rudin. Daniel Clowes ("Ghost World") recently finished a first draft of a screenplay about the making of "Adaptation."

"Clowes says it's one of the best things he's written," Strompolos says. He says a director hasn't been announced yet: "Rudin, of course, doesn't sign off on anything unless he's absolutely positive."

Strompolos isn't waiting. He and Zala have formed a production company called Rolling Boulder Films, and they're working on making another (original) movie together -- "a new action-adventure movie called 'What the River Takes.' It's set in present-day Mississippi. It's a river adventure, and a father quest of sorts. And then there's a kind of Southern-Gothic thriller that we're trying to option."

If prior press reports are any indication, the "Adaptation" screening will be raucous.

"From the first bar of static to the ending credits when the dates of Snickers' life roll up the screen, it's cheering, laughter, applause, hooting and hollering," Strompolos says. "People are also surprised that they're taken away by the story.

"Eric and I were at an international film festival in Palm Beach," he says, "and a guy our age came up to us after the screening and he had tears coming down his face. He said, 'I can't believe you guys did it. I can't believe you pulled it off.'"

On Saturday afternoon, Strompolos and Zala will give a free lecture on filmmaking, aimed at teens. (Lamb is reportedly compiling, remastering and editing old outtakesfootage from the "Adaptation" shoot to create a making-of documentary.)

"We have a PowerPoint presentation that not only chronicles our production process of doing 'Raiders,' but also great lessons on doing pre-production, production and post-production," Strompolos says. "All the great lessons teenagers should know before embarking on the filmmaking journey."